Disclaimer: Harry Potter does not belong to me.
A/N: I won't give any excuses for how long it's been since my last update; I'll just say I'm sorry. If you are still reading, thank you.
Content Note: Panic attack, intrusive thoughts, mildly gross imagery
Chapter 11: Asperity
"Coward, murderer, you worthless, useless—"
"Fucking pathetic, Weasley, that's what you are."
"Bloody hell! What happened?"
"Please! Please don't!"
"I was telling him how sorry I was about Penelope—"
CRACK. Percy's whole body flinches as the ear-splitting noise assaults him, followed by the sound of a cascade of broken glass smashing into the ground.
"They know, they know what you did to her—"
"She trusted you, and you let her die!"
"Fucking mud-blood had it coming, half the time I think I should just send you along with her—"
"How dare you just sit here when she's gone!"
"Oh!" A woman's exclamation of shock and pain rises to the foreground of a cacophony in Percy's head. A familiar voice, but not Penny's.
"Mum! Are you okay?"
Mum. Percy's eyes snap open. She's sprawled on the ground before him, Charlie crouching beside her. Dark liquid stains her robes.
"Blood. You've killed her."
"Of course," Penny says sadly. "Everyone unfortunate enough to care about you dies. Don't we, Percy?" Blood is pouring down the side of her face, the skin around her eye darkening and swelling.
"I'm fine." Molly pulls herself up into a sitting position. "It's just a little ink."
Ink? Percy looks past Penny's battered face long enough to see ink bottles smashed and scattered about the room, leaving black splatters on the walls and floor. Rolls of parchment have been strewn about, and where the window once was shards of glass cling to the empty frame like razor-sharp, hungry teeth.
A painful heat writhes underneath Percy's skin, an unfamiliar energy struggling to break free from his body. Had he done this? Destroyed the room with whatever little magic he has left?
"You destroy everything. You always have."
"I could have had a future," Penny sobs. The pale skin on her face is decaying, a rotted mess of gray flesh and congealed red blood falling away to reveal stark white bone beneath. "I could have had a life, if it wasn't for you."
"Percy…?" Charlie is kneeling on the ground, watching him with wide, worried eyes.
"You failed me!" Penny shrieks, her exposed jawbone dangling loose from her skull. "You failed everyone!"
"I'm sorry." The words tumble out before Percy can determine who he is apologizing to, and for what. "I'm so sorry."
"Everyone who's ever had the misfortune to know you?" Suggests an accusatory chorus of voices. Everything you've ever done in your useless life?"
"You don't have to be sorry," Charlie says softly. "Percy, I'm sorry. We're sorry."
"Sorry they didn't just leave you with the Death Eaters, I bet," Oliver sneers.
"I didn't mean to upset you," Molly says as she pulls herself into a sitting position. Tears are streaming down her face. All Percy does is make her cry. "I needed to see you, I needed to tell you—"
"That she knows what you did to Penny, she knows you let her die—"
"—that I love you, and I'm so, so proud of you."
For a second, the voices are all stunned into silence. Percy blinks, feeling hot tears squeeze from his eyes. "W-what?"
"We saw the papers, Perce." Charlie, still kneeling, shifts closer to Percy "Hermione figured out what you did, forging the blood certificates and everything else. We know how you helped all those people. It's incredible, Percy, really incredible. You saved so many people."
"Incredible, yeah." Oliver spits. "What you did to poor Pen really was incredible."
"But I d-didn't save her," Percy forces out, the words jagged and painful in his mouth. "And I didn't save…"
Percy had never been able to cast a Memory Charm precise enough to fully excise all knowledge of the people whose papers he had forged, to ensure he could never betray them. But he had managed to blur their names and faces in his mind, turning them into a confused muddle so that no torture or Legilimency could extract enough details to endanger them.
His failures, however, are lucid and ever present. The mother whose tree he hadn't been able to finish in time. The former classmate who had begged him for help as the Dementors were summoned to take her away. And, in the foreground of all their accusing faces, Penny.
Memories swirl and blend together. Penny, her face bruised and bloodied, the defiant blaze in her eyes disappearing forever with a flash of green light. Yaxley, looking almost bored as he stepped away from her corpse, like he had just stamped on a cockroach. Lying on a cold stone floor, his body still wracked with phantom pains from the Cruciatus Curse, waiting to die along with her. Flint looming above him, pressing down on him, sometimes triumphant, sometimes furious, an endless inescapable threat hanging over his head until Percy wished Flint would just finish him off so he could finally, finally, be free.
"Percy, can you hear me? Can you listen to me, please?" Charlie's voice pierces his haze of memories. "I can't imagine what you've been through, but you have you to believe me. What you did was brilliant, and whatever happened to Penelope—"
An unbearable wave of guilt and shame rocks Percy at the very sound of her name, and a floorboard near him snaps, spraying them with splinters of wood.
Charlie blocks the debris with one large, calloused hand and presses on. "Whatever happened to her was not your fault, okay? It's the Death Eaters' fault, You-Know-Who's fault. Not yours. You saved, what, dozens of people? That's a lot more than I—" Charlie swallows. "Than a lot of people did during the war. Whatever happened, you're safe now, okay?"
"Safe? What a fucking joke. He's still out there. No one can protect you from Flint."
But then Percy remembers his fourth year at Hogwarts. Flint had been bullying him, as always, but the behavior was escalating until Percy was beginning to fear he couldn't manage it himself. One day Flint found him alone on the grounds, shoving him down and crushing his hand underfoot before Percy could reach his wand. But before he could do worse, Charlie had barreled in and pummeled Flint with spells and fists until Percy was able to recover.
Charlie had gotten detention for that, had almost been banned from his beloved Gryffindor vs. Slytherin Quidditch match. But he'd done it, and Flint had left Percy alone for the rest of that year. Charlie had protected him. Percy had forgotten that.
Percy turns toward where Charlie is kneeling, an arm's length away. He no longer knows how to ask for help, if he ever did. "I'm sorry," he whispers again. "I tried. I tried to stop it. But I couldn't."
"We know, Perce." Charlie reaches out, and Percy lets his brother put his arms around him. "We know."
As he pulls his little brother toward him, Charlie tries to focus his reeling mind on being as careful with Percy as possible. He's used to dealing with dragons; even a newly hatched Short-Snout is a formidable opponent who can break a bone or roast your face of if you let your guard down. Percy feels so skinny, so brittle, that Charlie is afraid his brother will snap in half if he holds him too tightly.
"I should have died, not her," Percy mumbles into his shoulder. "I messed up and let them catch her. I deserved to die."
"No!" Cold horror seizes Charlie's chest at Percy's declaration. "No, don't say that. It's not your fault. Please believe me, it's not your fault."
"I wanted to die." Percy shudders. "He wouldn't let me die."
Their Mum is making a sound like a wounded Ironbelly, but Charlie can't focus on her right now. Can't think about her distress, can't think about the he Percy is talking about, can't do anything but try to hold Percy together and not to fall apart himself.
Charlie has never felt this helpless, not pinned underneath a dragon or facing down a Death Eater. "You're okay now, Perce. Everything's going to be okay." The words feel useless and empty even as Charlie says them, but what else can he do?
"I don't want to go back," Percy whispers, so quietly that Charlie can barely hear him even with his brother's head resting against his shoulder. "Please."
Charlie's heart just keeps finding new ways to break. "You won't," he swears. "That will never happen. We won't let that happen, Percy, I promise."
Percy is silent, and Charlie can only hope his brother believes him.